To All Plans, Good And Bad
by mkcrl120
Summary: Mainly a drabble fic, had an idea for a topic of discussion between the Scoobs.


Fic: To All Plans, Good And Bad  
  
Author: mkcrl120  
  
Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned in this story belong to Joss Whedon or Mutant Enemy or some other people. I own nothing and wrote this just to get it out of my system. The Ultimate idea comes from Marvel's use of revamping (pardon the pun) some of it's older titles.  
  
Summary: Drabble fic. Will possibly become a small scene in my Ultimate Slayer series.

Setting: Think season 2 ish (only mainly for the Ripper comment - elsewise doesn't matter).

Rating: 15 probably… will know more as it progresses. (That's the big fic/series that is - not this little part...)  
  
Special Thanks: To Nick Sicinski for coming up with a title for this fic.

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_Cemetary  
Sunnydale  
Nightime_  
  
Buffy and Xander are patrolling the cemetary. Xander's bored and has started to read the dates on the gravestones as something to do.  
  
"So..." he began, "How long do you think it actually is?"  
  
She looked him in the eyes, "If this is some penis question, you'd better start running now." was her response.  
  
"No... not that. How long do you reckon it normally takes for a vampire to rise... you know... from the first point, where there's the mutual biting/drinking, to the point where they're actually climbing out of their grave?"  
  
"Is that why you're reading gravestones..?" She took a closer look at the one in front of them. "July 1992... think if she was a vampire, then she's already risen, Xan."  
  
"I was just wondering... I mean... most of them seem to rise after they're buried... which is practically an advert for cremation if you ask me..."  
  
"So... they need to be buried. Seems obvious." She answered dismissively. "Cremation would definitely solve a lot of my problems."  
  
"But we've seen others rise in morgues... what happened to them... not buried in time?" He mused aloud.  
  
"Probably." She answered, turning at some sound. It turned out to be a cat.  
  
"When my gran died," He continued, not picking up on her lack of enthusiasm, "It was about a week and a half before we got around to the funeral. Some of these fledglings... well they've already had full funeral and everything. Is it like a rush-job for potential vampires or something?"  
  
Buffy was trying her best not to get drawn into this conversation.  
  
"Do you think there's a status to it... amongst vampires I mean... the properly buried ones, laugh at the one's who woke up in a morgue..?"  
  
She gave him a disbelieving look, but he hadn't noticed and continued on regardless.  
  
"And waking up in a morgue anyway... that's hardly very creature of the night-esque is it?" He scratched his chin with his left hand, "Though I suppose they've got **that **covered by the nocturnal blood-sucker aspect of their un-deadness... un-lives."  
  
"You shouldn't be allowed to have thoughts."  
  
"Willow's told me that before... anyway it's not my fault, you don't know anything about your job."  
  
"I know enough..." she pouted before reading off her mental list. "Pointy wood kills vampires, as does decapitation, sunlight, holy water and possibly garlic."  
  
Xander put his hands up, conceding the point. "Okay, so you know some things about vampires, but it's hardly anything you couldn't have figured out from watching a few fi.... **possibly **garlic..?"  
  
"It's hardly a weapon of choice... When I'm outnumbered, I don't look for the nearest grocery store." At his look, she added. "It's smelly, and it's harder to stab things with root vegetables."  
  
"You could mash it up and rub it in their faces..." Xander suggested.  
  
Buffy stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, "And if that doesn't work?"  
  
"Well... obviously you'd have the stake with you too."  
  
"Or how about **only **having the stake with me."  
  
"You could liquidise it and squirt them with it."  
  
"Or get holy water... which, when comparing their original forms, is far better designed for squirting."  
  
"You could liquidise it **and **mix that with holy water and use **that **combination to squirt them with. Sort of to double the effect." Xander informed her, quite proud of himself.  
  
Buffy sighed. "You're going to be coming up with suggestions all night, aren't you?"  
  
Xander grinned and winked at her. "Til a vampire turns up at least."  
  
"I guess if Giles asked what we did during the lack of vampire activity, I could say we were brainstorming." She said sadly.  
  
"It's better than homework."  
  
"Hey... that was good time-management." She argued.  
  
"Giles didn't see it that way. In fact, he was **so **annoyed with you two I wasn't sure if he was going to speak to you all week. Fancy, homework instead of patrolling, tut tut."  
  
"I don't know what he was complaining about... I could see almost all of the graveyard from where I was."  
  
"**That **was what he was annoyed about. Graveyard..? As in **singular**..? That was the reason behind his lecture."  
  
"Why didn't you get lectured at? He kept asking me and Will, how often we'd used that particular patrolling technique... he was very sarky when he said it too."  
  
"He did ask me, if we did homework on times when we go out patrolling together. I told him we didn't."  
  
"And he believed you..? How did you manage that?"  
  
"It was a battle of wills Buff. I faced him... stood up to him man to man. Looked him deep in the eyes as he asked me the question."  
  
Buffy slapped him. "Cut the theatrics... what did you say?"  
  
"Two words Buff... just two words... the second one was off."  
  
"Really?" She asked impressed.  
  
"Are **you **insane..? I wouldn't say that to Ripper... he'd murder me."  
  
"So what **did **you say?"  
  
"I looked him in the eye to show I was being truthful and replied as follows..." he hesitated, to make it more dramatic. "And I quote, _'Me... Homework..?'_, he didn't ask me again, I think he believed me."  
  
She began to smile, but then a sudden realisation hit her, "Oh God... I told him it was only the once. What if he asked Willow?"  
  
Xander smirked, "Do you copy off Willow a lot then, Buff?"  
  
"Shh... what if he asked Willow?"  
  
"If he asked Willow, then you're doomed. You know she cannot lie convincingly. She's goes bright red, and starts to deny everything. I once got her so flustered, she managed to deny even knowing me."  
  
"Crap I am so busted. How did you manage that..?"  
  
"I taunted her about having to come over to mine to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, and what her parents would do if they found out."  
  
"That's a cruel trick to play on a kid."  
  
"It was last year. You were invited, but spent it with your mom, remember?"  
  
"How about instead of reporting in, we Bronze-it til it shuts."  
  
"You scared of seeing Giles Buff?"  
  
"No... it's just... worth putting off til he calms down."  
  
"Copying homework on patrol..? Skipping slayer reports to go clubbing..? You're quite the role model Buff."  
  
"You coming Bronzing or not?"  
  
"Course... and anyway, least this way when you get busted for not patrolling properly, you still get to maintain an element of cool."  
  
"Willow's cool."  
  
"Doing homework in a graveyard at midnight, is not cool."  
  
"And watching you drool over girls on the dance floor is?"  
  
"I do not drool... I monitor... carefully. To make sure none of them are being led astray by some crafty vamp."  
  
"So what's the dancing bit for then... to reduce the amount of dancefloor that vamps can occupy in their attempts to seduce young people?"  
  
"It worked didn't it. Remember Tuesday night?"  
  
"I **am **the slayer you know, I can sense vampires remember. There was only one vampire on the dancefloor, and you ended up dancing with her."  
  
"You're just jealous cos my vampire locating skills beat yours hands down... and I got my plan into action first."  
  
"Your plan..?" She looked doubtful.  
  
"My very well carefully thought out plan of strategic action... yes, that one."  
  
"Oh I've got to hear this."  
  
"Firstly, I got the vamp interested in making me her meal, and not some other untrained person who might have panicked and become a late night snack. Once achieved I quickly moved on with my plan, and I brought said vamp over to my friend the slayer," Xander bowed in her direction, "Said Slayer spoke to said vamp while remaining inconspicuous, and then said slayer followed said said vamp into previously unsaid bathroom to stake her quickly. Plan successful... operation complete!"  
  
Buffy giggled. "That was your plan?"  
  
"I believed I just explained it as so." He responded, trying to imitate an English accent.  
  
"So why were you so shocked, when I returned to the table alone? And you almost spit out your drink, when I told you I'd staked her."  
  
"I thought we were going to stake her later, in a secluded alley or something, not just in the Bronze. See, **you **were veering from the plan... you can't just improvise madly in such a situatiuon Buff... anything could have happened."  
  
"You so didn't realise it was a vampire."  
  
"Did."  
  
"Didn't."  
  
"Did."  
  
Buffy gave up, knowing full well, he'd be willing to continue this way into the night. "Fine... We're here now, wanna try the same plan again? This time if I spot one I'll point her out to you first. Before you try and score with her." She said, as she paid the entrace fee.  
  
Xander paid his own, and followed her into the club. "I did not try and score with a vampire." Realising he'd just said that out loud, and several people were staring at him. As she walked away shaking her head in despair, he muttered under his breath. "I'm not the one interested in vampires in that way. Ouch."  
  
"I heard that."  
  
"Lousy slayer hearing."  
  
"Heard that too."  
  
"Will you stop hitting me?"  
  
"Then stop annoying me and get some drinks, while I scope out the floor."  
  
"Coke?"  
  
"Diet."

-----

_The next day  
Sunnydale Library_  
  
Buffy and Willow were trying to find some details off the computer, well Willow was, Buffy was mainly trying to avoid having to look in books.  
  
Giles returned from the stacks, quickly followed by Xander.  
  
"You sure it's four days?"  
  
"For the fifth time, yes."  
  
"So we have four whole days before they're a vampire or three? Is it on the fourth day, or is it four days then the corpse gets all _'grr... arghhhh'_?"  
  
"They will rise on the fourth night."  
  
"Gotcha... so what you're saying it that we have four whole days to get them, **before **they're even a threat?"  
  
"Technically yes... but, what exactly do you expect us to do during that time?"  
  
"I've been thinking about that... firstly we..." he checked to see if Buffy was listening, she was. "And by that of course I mean me... me wa... I was wondering if we could use that time to sell the benefits of cremation to their next of kin."  
  
"You're not talking to any of their families." Giles said firmly, "Do you even know what **secret **means?"  
  
"Okay..." Xander thought about a different perspective, "Couldn't we stake them while dead? I mean before they're undead... erm, before they rise?"  
  
Giles looked on in disbelief, "You actually want us to dig up random graves of all vampire attack victims, and stake their corpses on the chance that they might be vampires? Could you imagine the shock on the families faces, as they come to visit their departed love ones?"  
  
"What you mean, by comparison to the disturbed ground and complete lack of corpse in the ground? That's so much better for the grieving parents." Xander argued.  
  
"But thats a far fewer number of graves."  
  
"Only in the short term, less vampires getting to rise means less vampires eating the locals right? And less vampires getting to turn other people into new vampires. See if we do this then we can get Buffy to retire in a few years tops... trust me." Turning to Willow he added, "Pfft, and you say I never plan for anything."  
  
Willow whispered to Buffy, "**This **he thinks about... he didn't even attend those 'constructing a business plan' lectures."  
  
Buffy whispered back, "You didn't **have **to attend them?"  
  
"They were non-compulsory, you do remember me telling you don't you?"  
  
"I can't believe they were non-compulsory, that was the only subject I had a hundred percent attendance record for."  
  
Meanwhile, Xander was trying a different tactic on Giles, "I'm not saying we should disturb all those graves, but maybe getting a job at a local morgue might be a consideration."  
  
"This is irrelevant; we have no proof that staking a corpse before it rises and becomes a vampire, would have the desired affect. What are you proposing to do? Find the latest victims and instead of leaving them for the police to discover, take them home and stake them and see if any are dust a few days later?"  
  
"No, yes, no, possibly... don't know. Do you think we should..?"  
  
"Get out."  
  
Xander began pointing between Buffy and Giles, "You people really don't take suggestions well."  
  
Willow, ignoring Xander, continued to whisperer to Buffy, "I can't believe you would skip a lecture, simply because you don't have to go."  
  
"It's not a trap Will, they aren't going to surprise you later with tests based on topics covered in a non-compulsory subject."  
  
"We'll see when the exams start."  
  
Xander had just joined them at the computer terminal, "What exams? Have I supposed to have revised for an exam? Willow, lovely Willow, can I borrow your notes?" he asked as he sat down.  
  
Buffy began laughing, "Calm boy... There's no exam... no need to borrow anything, we were discussing the business plan lecture."  
  
Now he was confused, "The what?"  
  
"It was one of those non-compulsory lectures that Willow tricked me into attending." Buffy explained.  
  
"Oh... like French?"  
  
Willow looked slightly upset, "Buffy, I did not trick you... and Xander you're supposed to be attending French lessons."  
  
"Very funny Will. But you're not going to trick me into going to lessons I don't have to, like you did the Buffster."  
  
"You are supposed to attend Xan."  
  
"Oh two of you now eh... just cos she got you good and proper Buff, doesn't mean you can gang up on me."

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The End 


End file.
